QMES & ESTATES I I ...- is' .). ,,-- "f. A ,,"'- ..,..' r 1t ! I . )} :> t jr-.... c; >'"" -..;1- "':;J . 'J> ;/Þ (: . <,; ,,' ,-" ,- 1-' ....... \ ,,"1' ----. . ..... ,! - .:. .:> .t iz , -' / .:. : "'ll JI J -- . "7 ) .":' - " '"t' . '" ">.< 't" " nnr llt{ii ij i i F. j'j I "líil i' r [t!t 't4f;+ 't.j ", Wh. iì 1 k -...........,- - ";' :; . --r- --Í . ,- :---- . . ! ----......... - .-.) ,-f ,; " -, <> .'l ,- . . - .' """ - , -- - ,- /"'\ -Þ- -- r". ...,. PLAN YOUR DREAM HOME CALL FOR FREE IDEA PACKET. Linda! has been transforming dreams Into original homes of lasting qualit)T, craftsmanship and beauty for over 50 years. Call for our free 8 page, full color information packet with 6 floor plans. CALL 1-800-426-0536. ALindal Cedar Homes P.O. Box 24426, Dept TP2, Seattle, WA, USA 98124 10880 Dyke Road, Dept TP2, Surrey, B.C., Canada V3V7P4 N .- ( Ü'Thé' ßè-". ' 0 .. . f , 'Â ,,:r - :1. .. ... ^ ,... ^ "*,.(& ==:- ...-.:;..- 3b. I fr j' i '? . "- .J " ,;It '& $< .. ^ . .'":.. =<': v ß: .þ1 R 1m \ ('l/f ( Jlt \t A.n! ;.tt:-t-T Haig Point has been recognIzed as one of America's ten best private, equity country club communities by The Golfer Magazine, and our seaside golf has been rated as a "top 100" championship course by both Golf Digest and Golf Magazine. Golf cottages from $300,000 and estate homes to over $1 million. Fairway and waterfront homesites are also avadable on an idylhc island off the coast of Hilton Head, SC For more intormation call: , HAIG POINT 1-800-492-4244 ObtaIn the Property Report reqUIred bv Federal Law and read It 1..!!.l before Slgmng anythmg No tèderal agency has Judged the ments or value, If any, ofthls property U<l W Allen, Broker-In-Charge VOid where prohibIted by law T1\JY2/26/96 MEDICAL NOTES THE WANDERING WOMB Be thankful you don't have to consult an ancient gynecologist BY MARY LEFKOWITZ ;., '... . - . -". - . ... .,... . .. ....., .... F OR women, certainly, anatomy is destiny. Not so much because of what they lack as because of what they possess, which is to say wombs, vaginas, breasts: the female re- productive system is a weakness of both the body and the mind. That, at any rate, is how men seem to have thought of it for millennia. At the beginning of this century, male educators argued that women would injure their wombs if they studied Greek or mathematics. Ancient doctors believed that the womb could move about in a woman's body, putting pressure on other organs and so causing serious illness, and even death. We learn from an Egyptian papyrus of 1900 B.C. that if a woman is "ill in seeing," or suffers from pain in her eyes, or cannot open her jaws, the reason is thqt her womb is starved or dislocated. More than a thousand years later, Greek doctors still based their diagnoses of fe- male ailments and female behavior on the false hypotheses developed by the Egyptians. The womb was held respon- sible for virtually all diseases experienced by women, even mental disorders. A woman who was unwell was said to be "womby"; in later times, particularly in the nineteenth century, their malady be- came known as hysteria-'\vombiness." How could such diseases of the womb be cured? According to the fourth-century Hippocratic doctors, there were two viable courses of treat- ment. One was sexual intercourse, espe- cially if it resulted in pregnancy. The other course of treatment involved medication. If a womb had risen to the upper abdomen, a doctor might lure it back into place by inserting sweet- scented vaginal suppositories in his pa- tient. If the doctor thought that the womb had moved down toward the patient's hips, so that its opening was obstructed, fumigations or vapors were used to open it and allow the woman to menstruate. Another vaginal irritant was animal excrement, whose use, like the notion of the wandering womb, was in- herited from the Egyptians. One "cure" recommended In the Papyrus Ebers, an Egyptian medical document dating from the sixteenth century B.C., re- quired that the woman herself apply on her affected organs dried human excre- ment mixed with beer froth. Greek doctors, for their part, pre- scribed cow or goat dung, or bird drop- pings, often in combination with fra- grant wine or perfumes like rose oil. (Cures derived from animal excrement are used today: a form of the estrogen used in hormone-replacement therapy is extracted from the urine of pregnant mares.) Why did ancient doctors think that excrement, which they never used on men, would work on women? Perhaps (as the scholar Heinrich von Staden sug- gests) they thought that the womb was polluted, and so employed the ritual technique of fighting pollution with pol- lution, in an early version of homeopathy. Even today, when wombs have stopped wandering, medicine tends to pathologize the vagaries of the female reproductive system, from menarche to menopause. Women of ancient times themselves looked back with nostalgia on the carefree years of their childhood. Who could blame them for dread- Q ing, in sickness and in health, the pros- pect of their womb-dominated years? .